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It's Only A Game
By
Mar 16, 2005, 13:04

IT'S ONLY A GAME

STORY OUTLINE
THEME
CAST ATTACHED
TEAM



STORY OUTLINE

For Cliff Cutbush, twenty-three years a teacher at John Seymour Primary School nothing matters more than running the school football team. It's his life, his obsession.

With less than a week to go to the biggest game of the season however and with one key player excluded, one suicidal, another due to have three teeth out on the afternoon of the match and the opposition apparently at full strength, Cliff is a worried man. He knows his managerial skills are about to face their severest examination.

It is also the biggest game of the season for their opponents Maryvale Primary School, one of whose parents is determined to secure the right result before the game kicks off. Finding out that Cliff and Brenda Barrett, mother of the John Seymour School goalkeeper, have been having a long standing affair gives him the perfect ammunition with which to do so.



THEME

It's Only A Game. It's only kids playing football after all. How seriously can any adult possibly take it? How seriously should they take it? How seriously do they take it?

All over the world, many of those involved in children's football and sport for children in general, especially where their own their child is concerned, take it VERY seriously indeed.

Those running clubs and teams seem to believe they really are the manager of Manchester United about to play the mighty Real Madrid in the Champions League Final, very often forgetting that they are talking to and dealing with nine year olds.

This can often be highly amusing, and endearing. However, it can also be alarming.

A parent was imprisoned recently for biting off part of the ear of the referee in charge of the game his ten-year-old son was playing in.

Another parent, unhappy with the referee's performance in a game his young child played in, returned an hour after the team had left the ground, found the referee, who was by then in the middle of refereeing another game, walked onto the pitch and in front of two teams of children, head butted him.

It's not just referee's who take abuse either. Managers, parents, supporters and even the players too, following the example of their elders, often intimidate, threaten each other and are sometimes violent, often over the most trivial of matters, like a disputed throw in or an offside decision.

For many parents, who invest a lot of time, energy and emotion into the game it presents an opportunity to live out their own frustrated fantasies through their children.

Every parent wants the team they run, or that their child plays for, to win, to be the best, to be crowned champions. Every parent wants their son to be the next David Beckham or Wayne Rooney.

But what lengths are they prepared to go to? For some it's a matter of life and death. Literally!!!

Dealing with morality and the dangers of obsession, It's Only A Game, is a sharp and thought provoking comedy with a dark underbelly and a message for us all.







CAST ATTACHED


David Threlfall (Shameless, Chunky Monkey, Master And Commander:The Far Side Of The World)




TEAM

Greg Cruttwell (Writer/Director)

Greg is co-managing director of Head Gear Films. He comes from a creative background as an actor, writer and director. Greg trained as an actor at the London Academy Of Music And Dramatic Art - L.A.M.D.A. He spent twelve years working in the theatre and on television with many different companies before taking a leading role in his first feature film, Mike Leigh's NAKED. He subsequently had leading roles in, TWO DAYS IN THE VALLEY and GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE. He wrote and starred in, WAITING FOR SIR LARRY, a play about a terrorist desperate for an Equity card, which was presented at the Edinburgh Festival where it won a Fringe First Award. Greg wrote and directed his first feature film, CHUNKY MONKEY, starring David Threlfall and Alison Steadman. ("Deadpan, deranged, and, like the ice cream after which it is named, an instant cult classic" movie-gazette) After overcoming the threat of many law suits the film had a sell out world premiere at the Leeds International Film Festival in November 2004, where it returned as a festival favourite and packed houses on its release at the Everyman Cinema in London. It was released throughout the UK by Revolver Entertainment and on DVD in August 2005. It was released on DVD in the USA in April 2007. Greg also wrote and directed award winning short film, FINGERS X'D, about two football supporters contemplating a sex change as a thank you to the club they follow and produced RABBIT ON THE MOON(CONEJO EN LA LUNA), which played in competition at amongst others, the Berlin, AFI and Toulouse festivals, where it won the Prix Rail D'oc as best picture. It has also won a Mexican Academy Award and received eleven award nominations in all. Greg currently has a number of film and television projects in development with Head Gear including, a mockumentary and a football comedy which has David Threlfall attached to play the lead. Greg is also attached to direct Canadian/UK film, WHAT YOU NEED, in 2007 .


Phil Hunt (Producer)

From a background of working as an advertising and music photographer, Phil is co-managing director of Head Gear Films, a production and gap financing feature film organization. 2007 saw the launch of Bankside Films, an international film sales agency, which Phil is also Co-Managing Director of and co-founded by Hilary Davis and Stephen Kelliher, formerly of Beyond Films. Davis takes the title of co-Managing Director and Kelliher that of Director of Sales & Marketing.

Phil began producing feature films in the mid 1990’s with FAST FOOD (Douglas Henshall and Emily Woof), sold internationally by Vine International Pictures and released in the UK early 2000 by Optimum Releasing. This was followed by CHUNKY MONKEY directed by Greg Cruttwell, (Alison Steadman and David Threlfall), It has been termed a punk ‘Abigail’s Party’ and ‘An Edward Hopper painting commissioned by Monty Python’. Head Gear’s first investment that Phil also produced was a Mexican UK political thriller RABBIT ON THE MOON directed by Jorge Ramirez Saurez, which played in competition at amongst others, the Berlin, AFI and Toulouse festivals. It has had 11 award nominations. International sales by Capitol Films.

Head Gear Films and Bankside Films now provides finance for other producers as well as producing and executive producing and international sales. Five films have been financed via Head Gear Films: THE ALL TOGETHER starring Martin Freeman, GHOSTS directed by Nick Broomfield (opening film in competition at San Sebastian), SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL directed by Roger Spottiswoode, HOW ABOUT YOU starring Vanessa Redgrave and Imelda Staunton and NORMAL directed by Carl Besai, starring Carrie-Anne Moss and Kevin Zegers.















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